It’s the ‘WHAT!!! Garmin Connect isn’t working!!!’ weekly report

Wow what a week…where to start, massive miles, records broken, virtual races – it’s been all go!

Virtual Fell Running Champs – Race 2

So Pete T has been taking part in the Virtual fell running champs  – like the fell champs there is a short, medium and long race. Race 1 had to be 4m with 900ft of ascent, and round 2 had to be 8m with 1800ft ascent – and you have to race between 11/7 and 26/7. You have to plan your own route, and have at least 1 summit or hilltop. 

Thanks to Pete for sending in this report for Race 2:

A day before the deadline, I finally ran my route for round 2 of the virtual fell race, with Lucy providing much needed company, a welcome change to the previous 4 months of running on my own! This had the added bonus that Lucy actually knew where we were going! (** mostly Pete!!**)

After many false starts I was beginning to think that this run was jinxed, but eventually, despite forecasts of thunder we decided to just go for it and run the bloody thing! What a great choice that was. We set off in the rain, trying to decide if we were very stupid, or just a little bit stupid, but by the time we had reached Mill Hill, the rain was gone, and by William Clough, the sun was out and the views were stunning. 

We even threw in a bit of heather bashing towards the end of the run, trying to find a mysterious path down from Twenty Tree Wood, which we were only doing so we could go down and straight back up the hill again to make sure I’d covered enough elevation for the race, a fact we were cursing with every step back up! Particularly infuriating is that when I loaded my run onto Strava I discovered that we’d actually done 1900ft rather than the required 1800ft, so probably could have done without that last hill effort.  Woops! Sorry Lucy! 

Not entirely sure where I am in the standings, somewhere lingering at the bottom I expect, but it was good fun and motivation to get out and run somewhere I hadn’t before. I’m probably going to bottle the last round, as I genuinely think I’ll die half way round! So I will need to look elsewhere for motivation! 

Nice one Pete 🙂 defo been good to get out and have some company and try new routes! Also congrats to Pete on a nice shiny medal for completing the Covid19k challenge! Strava shown Pete’s been upping the miles during lockdown and completed longest runs to date knocking out a couple of half marathons – good running!

Virtual Lakeland 50 and 100

Now despite the garmin outage at the end of the week, it can’t have gone unnoticed that there have been some of our blue and oranges doing some seriously big mileage this week! Why? It’s been the virtual Lakeland 50 and 100 miler challenges this week – now running 50 and 100 miles in a week is good going at the best of times on the flat, but add into the mix trying to get the ascent that these races include is no mean feat…but that hasn’t stopped the likes of Will/Pete W/Luke/Jason/Dan S doing some big miles and some big ascent! Only got one report in from Dan – so just a quick summary from what I can get from FB and Strava from the others – Will and Luke have been over in Wales chucking in some big climbs, and out at all all sorts of crazy hours (as has Pete Wallroth!) to get in their 100miles for the week. Pete got the week off to a flying start by doing 17ish km first thing Monday morning – and however many miles he & the others seem to run, their legs just DONT seem to get tired which is a bit demoralising when we joined Pete and Will for a flat one along the trail (before they headed up Torside!) and the only way we could keep up was being dragged by the dogs!

Thanks to Dan for sending in this report of his running week:

“I’ve had a great week taking part in the Virtual Lakeland 50.  Whilst I was a little dubious about paying £20 for a medal and then going out running on my own, the profits are for charity and I also have some affinity for the Lakeland races having been there the last two years.  Plus it’s been a good motivator to get out and run every day of the week.  I thought I’d push things a bit and go for 100km rather than 50 miles/80km and I also wanted to try and replicate the elevation of the race: around 3,000m.

By today I’d clocked up 105.9km with 3,776m elevation so pretty much what I’d targeted.  Whilst there were a few “filler” runs, had a good few local runs in the hills, a “vulture spotting” long run by Ladybower with Mark D and the rather glorious Eigiau Horseshoe (taking in Carnedd Llewelyn) route with Immy which really helped get some climbing in!

Massive Kudos to Will Mather and Luke Holme who did the 105 miler (along with the ~7,000m climbing) and Pete Wallroth who did the 50 (but also got ~100km throughout the week).  Great week of running!”

As Dan says, massive kudos to everyone who did this virtual challenge! Whilst we are here, whilst not technically a GDHer, felt like I had to mention this – Will Mather dragged his sister on her first fell race last summer, and whilst maybe wanting to punch him at the time…she was a bit of a regular at local races for the remainder of the 2019 racing calendar and well and truly got into running. This week, she smashed the virtual Lakeland 50! Nice one Sonn…wanna join GDH…??? 🙂

Just goes to show, we might not have real races right now but if you fancy a challenge, or need to find your mojo, or fancy exploring new routes, or finding out how hardcore you are -these virtual races and challenges can be great!

Coaching Corner

Well he might be out the country but panic not, here’s your weekly dose of coaching all the way from….Holland! Thanks Jeroen! 

NOT Coached Session of “cannot remember what week since lockdown started”, 27 July – 2 August.

As I am sitting on a park bench in the sun on the course of the Amsterdam parkrun, my thoughts went to the last time I was here, the one, and so far still only parkrun that was ever held, just before lockdown. I may be out of the country but would not want to deprive you of your weekly “quality” set 🤭. 

Time to start thinking about the next parkrun, whenever that may be and prepare for that. So, time to build some distance back into your training and work on speed endurance. And what better way than with a pyramid session. 

But, as this is the first one and to ease you back into it gently, only a half pyramid this week . Here it is:

Run 400m, 800, 1200, 1600 (=1 mile) and 2000m at between 10k and 5k pace, or 6.5-7.5/10 RPE. Run easy 400m recovery after each pyramid effort, not more than 4/10 RPE.

In another format: 

400 hard, 400 recovery

800 hard, 400 recovery

1200 hard, 400 recovery

1600 hard, 400 recovery

2000 hard, 400 recovery

As always, do not ignore that all important warmup. Consider:

*baby skips with arm rotation 

*high knees 3x 30 seconds

*carioca with step over, both left and right

*A-skips

*walk 20m on your toes, walk back, followed by 20m on your heels. 

Coach J

Committee Corner

Thanks to everyone for being patient with us whilst we digest the new EA guidance about a return to training etc. We’ve got a meeting v soon to discuss and rest assured we will share an update with you as soon we have one.